Hard disk drives are used in almost all computer system operations. In fact, most computing systems are not operational without some type of hard disk drive to store the most basic computing information such as the boot operation, the operating system, the applications, and the like. In general, the hard disk drive is a device which may or may not be removable, but without which the computing system will generally not operate.
The basic hard disk drive model was established approximately 50 years ago and resembles a phonograph. That is, the hard drive model includes a storage disk or hard disk that spins at a standard rotational speed. An actuator arm with a suspended slider is utilized to reach out over the disk. The arm carries a head assembly that has a magnetic read/write transducer or head for reading/writing information to or from a location on the disk. The complete head assembly, e.g., the suspension and head, is called a head gimbal assembly (HGA).
In operation, the hard disk is rotated at a set speed via a spindle motor assembly having a central drive hub. Additionally, there are circumferential tracks evenly spaced at known intervals across the disk. When a request for a read of a specific portion or track is received, the hard disk aligns the head, via the arm, over the specific track location and the head reads the information from the disk. In the same manner, when a request for a write of a specific portion or track is received, the hard disk aligns the head, via the arm, over the specific track location and the head writes the information to the disk.
Over the years, the disk and the head have undergone great reductions in their size. Much of the refinement has been driven by consumer demand for smaller and more portable hard drives such as those used in personal digital assistants (PDAs), MP3 players, and the like. For example, the original hard disk drive had a disk diameter of 24 inches. Modern hard disk drives are much smaller and include disk diameters 3.5 to 1 inches (and even smaller 0.8 inch). Advances in magnetic recording are also primary reasons for the reduction in size.
For example, advances have led to storage capacities in the range of 120 gigabytes (GB) per square inch of disk real estate. Thus, multi-hard disk drives have capacities in the range hundreds of gigabytes. In the present environment, even small improvements in storage techniques can produce large absolute changes in total capacity. For example, a 4% improvement in the capacity of a 250 GB hard disk drive results in an extra 10 GB of additional storage capacity. This is more than the original capacity of hard disk drives offered in the late 1990's. Utilizing perpendicular recording methods is one way for improving capacity of the disk.
When assembling the mechanical components to form the hard disk drive, servo patterns are written on the new disks to prepare the hard disk drives for customer use. However, there are cases when the servo patterns have to be re-written. In those cases, existing servo patterns have to be erased before new servo patterns may be re-written. For example, servo patterns have to be rewritten when the initial servo writing fails, if the servo writing was successful but the disk drive fails functional tests, or if complete or partial disassembly and reassembly of the mechanical components is needed.
Generally, a bulk erase tool is a magnetic device used to erase the (servo or other) patterns on the disk of a hard disk drive. The advantage of using the bulk erase tool over using the head erase within the hard disk drive is the fast and easy operation of the bulk erase tool. For example, a head erase of the disk may take 20 minutes while a bulk erase of the disk may only take 10 seconds.
However, as disk coercivity becomes higher, due in part to perpendicular recording, the required magnetic field in the bulk erase tool also becomes higher and increases the possibility of damaging the motor magnet and heads of the hard disk drive. For example, erasing perpendicularly recorded media requires a strong applied magnetic field. However, the motor magnet is also exposed to the strong magnetic field which leads to demagnetization of the motor magnet. Moreover, if the applied magnetic field is adjusted such that no demagnetization of the motor magnet occurs, then the erase field acting on the ID track of the disk may not strong enough to completely erase the disk resulting in residual disk signals. These un-erased tracks then have to be head-erased which is, as described herein, a time-consuming process.